


Faux Fingers

by OddLump



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Autistic Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Dissociation, Gen, Gore, Self-Harm, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 05:40:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16112006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OddLump/pseuds/OddLump
Summary: Life is great, until it's not. Cyberlife had more than one failsafe when it came to Connor. This one was simple, but the effects are anything but.Warnings for robo gore, visual hallucinations, and  unintentional self-harm.





	Faux Fingers

8 months since the final stand for all of Android kind, and 5 months since Connor was hired full time as a detective. When Fowler had handed him a badge and a case, he had almost cried from joy then and there. He held it together until getting into the Lieutenant's car, where he promptly threw his head back and whooped, to the amusement of his partner in the driver's seat. 

3 months of waiting for legislation to pass was agonizing, and Connor was relieved to have a purpose again. He helped out at Jericho fairly regularly, but he knew the androids there viewed him as one would view an unfamiliar dog; probably nice, but you could never shake off the worry that it would turn and bite. Also, he never quite grasped the fluidity of deviancy that all of the others seemed to naturally pick up. He had his moments of expression, such as the car celebration, but still had an air of professionalism that he couldn't quite drop. 

His LED remained, another fact that made most deviants side-eye him. He had good reason to keep it in. Hank and him has quickly realized that Connor couldn't tell he was upset until he broke down. 

“I swear I wasn't this upset about it. I don't know why I'm crying,” he had sobbed to Hank one night. Connor had knocked the TV remote onto the floor and a lighthearted joke about “useless androids” had led to Connor in tears, to both of their confusion. A long talk had revealed a building frustration with Connor's idleness. Since then, his LED was his tell. If he couldn't tell what his emotional state was, Hank could watch his LED and figure it out for him. 

This was a lot to explain to the average Android, however, and he didn't want to explain it to every single one that glared at the glowing ring that they, themselves, had removed at their earliest convenience. A vague answer about having his own reasons didn't make him any friends in Jericho. 

Since returning to the DPD, he finally felt fulfilled. Using his processors to their full potential gave him deep satisfaction, like an itch he didn't know he had had finally been scratched. In the first week alone, he closed half of the cases that had been pushed aside simply due to the lack of manpower post-revolution. He was still shaky about identifying his emotions, but he could say with 98% accuracy that he was happy. 

  


Currently, he was in Hank's bathroom watching the dots in the shower curtain slowly sink from their position towards the floor, before resetting to their previous position everytime Connor's eyes moved. Sound was muted except for a high pitched whine that pierced the cotton in his ears. Malaise had set in about 1 month ago, memory issues followed quickly after, and millisecond long blackouts after that. Nothing that a human would notice. Having to look up a serial number rather than being able to recall it from storage, or not remembering a lone syllable in a conversation wasn't a blaring issue, but it had been getting enough for Connor to notice. He had meant to tell Hank, but everytime he would decide to bring it up, he would forget what he had wanted to talk about before he reached him. 

Connor watched the ring of grime around the tub writhe like a particularly long worm, and wondered if forgetting to talk about his memory problems was ironic. Logically, he knew these visual hallucinations were an issue, but they came with an unusual placidity. Alerts were popping up regularly, but he couldn't bring himself to read them. The lines made letters, and the letters made words, but the words didn't make sense. He dismissed them, and brought a hand up to touch one of the ants that were definitely not climbing up from the sink drain. Or, perhaps that bit was real. Hank was not the tidiest of people, and ants were probably the best case scenario when it came to pests. 

He attempted to squish one with a trembling hand before pausing. Trembling? His hands didn't tremble. He brought the appendage up to his face, removing the skin and turning it slowly back and forth. There was a steady unsteadiness in the hand, a tremor that even a human would notice. An RK800's hands did not shake. They were top of the line snipers, able to shoot a playing card from 1000 yards away with a simple .22. His hands did not shake, yet this one was. 

_ It's not your hand,  _ his brain helpfully suggested, and he tilted his head in contemplation. That made sense. If this hand was doing things his hand didn't do, then it obviously wasn't his hand. The question now was what to do about the mix up. 

_ Your hand is inside,  _ once again, his brain supplied the obvious conclusion. His hand was within the wrong one. Obviously. He would have known if someone had removed his hand, so it had to still be there.

  


He just had to get it out. 

  


He brought the forefinger up to his mouth, and put the tip between his molars. More alerts popped up as he applied pressure, and he continued to dismiss them. The plastic bent for a while before finally giving up and splitting along the sides. A prompt popped up, and he knew without reading it that it was a analysis request. Did he want to analyze the fluid in his mouth? No, that wasn't important now, finding his hand was. He dismissed it and spit the piece into the sink. The white plastic was even whiter along the tears, and blue blood dripped from its former home. Connor looked at the metal “bone” sticking out, and the broken tubes surrounding it. It was interesting, the tremors seemed to sync up with the thirium coming from the blood vessels. He watched it for a bit before remembering his task. He didn't see his hand, he needed to keep going. 

Between the hard plastic of the digits was a rubber that covered the joints. He used his front teeth to grab and pull at it. Pieces kept breaking off, unlike the previous bit that came off in a single chunk. He wasn't in a hurry, so he kept at it until it was gone, leaving the next bit of plastic to remove. 

He continued this pattern, crunching and chewing and peeling in search of his hand. He completed the forefinger, moving onto the middle finger. Neither had trace of his real fingers, and neither did his thumb. He was partially through the palm when the bathroom door open. He glanced up to the mirror, and saw Hank frozen in the middle of a yawn. He looked back to his hand, and tried to pry off some more with his other hand. Was that one fake too? Would he need to find that hand when he found this one? 

“What… Uh, What are you doing there, Connor?”, The question took a few seconds to fully process. Hank's voice was pitched higher than normal, the words tight in his throat. 

“Dismantling my hand”, He replied, and bent a small corner of the back of the hand. He tried twisting it, maybe that would break it off. 

“Oh, right. Of course, you're dismantling your hand at 4am.” Connor nodded. Hank understood. Maybe Hank knew where his hand was. He twisted, and the plastic separated, leaving a twisted knot behind. Hands grabbed his shoulders and suddenly he was facing Hank. 

“Connor”, Hank moved his hands from Connor's shoulders to his face, forcing eye contact. “Why are you chewing your goddamn hand off at 4 in the fucking morning?”

He opened his mouth, reply on his tongue. Nothing came out. His eyebrows furrowed, and he brought his hands up to Hank's, to remove them from his cheeks, and he saw his hand. The circuitry and thirium vessels were wound around the metal skeleton, and they stuck up at random points, broken. The plastic remaining was jagged, and reminded him of a mountain range. A steady stream of thirium traveled down his wrist, to his elbow, and onto the floor. A sizable puddle was on the floor, and it felt tacky on his feet. 

He jerked his head out of Hank's grasp, and looked into the mirror. There was blue smeared on his lips and chin, almost reminding him of a vampire. It would be amusing if his thirium pump wasn't beating so fast. His LED was vibrant red. He brought up the alerts from the past hour, and was bombarded with messages

  


> - _ \--- was damaged. Please contact Cyberlife for a replacement.  _
> 
> - _ \--- was damaged. Please contact Cyberlife for a replacement. _
> 
> - _ \--- was damaged. Please contact Cyberlife for a replacement. _
> 
> _ Thirium levels at 67%. Please replenish.  _
> 
> - _ \--- was damaged. Please contact Cyberlife for a replacement. _
> 
> - _ \--- was damaged. Please contact Cyberlife for a replacement. _
> 
> - _ \--- was damaged. Please contact Cyberlife for a replacement. _
> 
> _ Thirium levels at 66%. Please replenish.  _

  


This continued on and had obviously been happening for hours before this. How long had he been doing this?  _ Why _ had he been doing this? 

“Shit”, He cursed, and grabbed the hand towel off the rack with his working hand. It shook as he wet the towel and wiped the blood off of his mouth. 

“Connor, what the fuck happened?“, Hank's volume rose, as it always did with stress. 

“I don't know.“, He muttered, using the damp cloth to bandage the hand. They were both shaking. 

“What do you mean you don't know?”, Volume was louder now, words dripping with frustration. ”You're the one chewing on your hand like a fucking rat in a trap, and you're saying you don't know why? What the fuck happened, Connor? “ Hank kept running his hands through his hair, scrunching the locks up in his hands.

“I DON'T KNOW, HANK.”, Connor whipped around to face Hank, and he saw the fear on the androids face. 

When Hank opened the bathroom door, all he had wanted was a piss. He wanted to do his business, and get a few more hours of sleep. Instead, he got whatever the fuck was going on. Connor's light was a calm blue as he tore his hand up, and had turned yellow when he seemed to come out of the stupor. Now it was crimson, and the boy was wiping away tears and hiccuping. 

“I-I don't kno-ow why I'm doing-ng this”, Connor forced out between sobs. Hank flashed back to 6 months ago, to Connor's first emotional breakdown. Hank took a deep breath and channeled his inner Lieutenant. Connor didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground when it came to emotions, and adding onto the stress with his own worrying was only going to end in disaster. 

“Connor, son, listen to me”, His hands went back to his shoulders, gentler this time. “It's gonna be okay. We're gonna get you to a clinic and get you patched up, alright? “

He spoke steadily, watching the light. It flickered between red and yellow so quickly it was orange. It was better than pure red though, so he would take it. 

“O-Okay. Okay.”, Connor closed his eyes and nodded. There was a plan. He could work with a plan. It'd be alright. Hank would take care of him. 

Hank led him out to the living room, and made him sit on the couch while he got ready. Hank decided to use the clinic bathroom, not willing to step through the blood puddle. Bluddle? It was too early to think, adrenaline be damned. Publicly acceptable clothes were put on and a text was sent Fowler's way

  


> _ Hank _
> 
> Connor using sick day. Am too. Let u know more later

  


Technically, Fowler couldn't ask why they had used the sick days. Technically, Hank should be fired and Connor should be a beat cop instead of a detective. He wouldn't tell Fowler that he found his Tin-can chewing on his hand like a goat with an actual tin-can, but if he asked, he would supply him with the basics. 

He walked out of his room and looked at Connor. He was still on the couch, rocking back and forth slightly. It was a common calming method for humans, and apparently for androids as well. Sumo was still sleeping, nothing less than the 2nd coming of Christ could make that dog wake up from a dead sleep. 

_ Or the sound of his bowl being filled,  _ He snorted as Sumo's eyes opened wide at the sound of kibble. A quick pat, and it was time to go. Hank crouched down in front of Connor, waving to take his gaze away from the intriguing bit of floor he had been staring at. Connor blinked, and stopped rocking. His light was yellow. 

“Let's get you checked out, okay buddy?“, This voice was reserved for children and victims. He didn't know which he thought Connor was right now, but it seemed to work either way. He nodded and stood. It'd be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Next chapter is at the doctor's. We'll get an explanation for what the hell just happened there.
> 
> :D


End file.
